The Lady in the Mist (The Western Werewolf Legend #1) (5 page)

Those doe eyes tracked his reaction with a slight quirk to the corner of her mouth.  The hairs on his nape prickled with the reply she shared with him.  When telltale color rose in her cheeks, Ty suspected the explanation held more than she acknowledged with words.

***

Sonja closed the door behind her leaning against the solid wood of the frame.  Her senses needed to calm.  The man on the other side of the portal waxed handsome.  In the light of day, however, and under his own power, he proved magnificent, like some Greek God she’d read about.  Had she ever been so aroused?  When she opened the door and found him standing next to the bed buck-naked, she’d frozen.  Of course, she’d tended the lieutenant’s wounds.  She wouldn’t be a red-blooded woman, if she hadn’t admired his male body while she was about the task.  Still what a surprise, though a pleasant one to be sure, to find him partially aroused while watching her with the most hypnotic blue eyes she’d ever seen.

A flush crept up her neck.  Reaching up, she did her best to cool the burning of her skin.  Sonja didn’t have to wonder whether the heat of the new day had affected her so, or the sight of the lieutenant in the altogether.  She moved away from the portal but gave the door a fleeting glance before heading to the kitchen.  One thing she wouldn’t do again is barge into the bedroom without knocking first.

Taking another deep breath, Sonja crossed to the sink to pumped water for tea.  Reasoning the tea would calm her nerves, she set the water to boiling.  As she started preparing for the noon meal, a pleasant picture of the lieutenant wafted through her mind. What was his name – Ty?  Yes, Ty, would be hungry.  She remembered the silver medallion that hung from his neck.  She’d swallowed hard when her errant mind followed the chain’s decent to the crisp black hair that surrounded his belly and lower body.  Such a powerful man.

So much had happened within the last several days, the attack and the change.  Glancing down at her wrist still bandaged but needlessly, she considered how peculiar the memory of that night proved.  She’d been returning from the garden when there’d been someone suddenly in the path ahead.  Sonja shoved the ugly memory away.

The old woman’s words still spun in her brain even though a week had passed.  Sonja sipped her tea.  Returning hadn’t been what she’d intended but anxiety over sensations and feelings she’d had drove her back in the dead of night for answers.  She’d known the way, which amazed her.  Thinking back, Sonja still cringed when she recalled the hand of the black beast on her shoulder, the one Hortence called the Guardian.  Perhaps her fears had something to do with her near encounter with death, but she couldn’t get the dark beast out of her mind.  She’d fled that night as well, running head long into a battle and the lieutenant.

She glanced back at the bedroom door.  The man in her bed on the other side of the wall wore no identification on him except a silver medallion with the name T. Loflin engraved in the silver.  The other side of the medallion bore some sort of family crest, she guessed.  He’d been almost dead when she’d gotten to him.  His pulse had been weak. Sonja had been forced to put her cheek close to his mouth to make sure he still lived.  She’d really doubted he would live until she got him to her cottage.  From the blood surrounding him, she wagered he’d lost most of his life’s source.  Without a consideration, she’d nicked her wrist and allowed him to drink her blood.

Hortence had explained how revitalizing her blood could be as her veins contained a source of great strength.  She didn’t really believe the old woman’s ranting, but she had little else she could’ve done for him, so with a taste of her blood on his lips, Sonja carried him back to her cottage.

With a good bath, removal of the lice, numerous stitches, and the cauterization of the wound in his leg, Lieutenant Loflin stabilized.  Over the past several hours, his wounds had begun to close and were healing at a rapid rate.  She’d never seen the likes of it.  Pink skin with only traces of the damage the shrapnel and bullets had caused remained.  Could this accelerated healing be the gift Hortence referred to?  She would definitely have to ask Hortence more about her gift.

Sonja checked the pot on the cast iron stove.  With the meager allotment of chicken in the pot for the noon meal, Sonja took her tea out on the front porch of her small, simple cottage.

The house she and Robert had built themselves was modest, but she loved the warmth of the wooden structure.  She’d managed to dress the place up a bit with flowers, most of which were native plants from the swamp nearby.  She kept a small garden down the well-worn path to the left of her front door.  The water from the small creek that ran through the lowland provided adequate moisture for a variety of vegetables and herbs.  Being proud of her garden, Sonja worked the ground by hand, tenderly cultivating the young plants with seeds she’d saved from the previous year’s patch.  The war had almost put a halt to any outside shipping trade in the nearby town of Spotsylvania.  She’d made do with what she had.

The sun beamed down.  Sonja realized the morning must be getting on.  She finished the last of the tea and told herself she wouldn’t think about the man lying in her bed anymore.  She had chores to do.

Again, the witch, Hortence’s words came back to her.  Ideal hands could be risky for one so newly turned.  The witch had instructed her to remain busy to keep her mind off the simmering condition breeding inside her.  Come the full moon, she would have the release of the urges growing stronger within her each passing day.  Time was running out, she mused, before the moon grew to its peak and Sonja would be at her most vulnerable.

***

A rooster crowed somewhere in his dreams.  The sound broke through Ty’s slumber like the bugler’s wake-up call.  He knuckled his eyes to rouse himself from the dregs of the best sleep he’d had in a long while.  Hearing the birds outside as they offered up a cheerful song, he rose with effort.  Dragging his wounded leg close to the edge of the four-poster, Ty started to get up.  Slinging back the hand-made quilt, he aimed at the slop pot to relieve himself.  The fact he had to use one wore on his already tattered pride.  His tolerance for convalescence grew thinner with each passing hour.  Soon, he would be up and under his own power again.  Ty glanced around the tiny bedroom remembering where he found himself.  The small wooden vanity, which shelved a brush and comb atop a simple cotton runner stood along the right wall.  A washbowl and pitcher stood there as well.  She must’ve put them there while he slept.  The left wall contained the room’s only window.

Glancing down, Ty rubbed the healing flesh over his wounded thigh.  He’d healed so quickly.  Had he imagined the severity of his injury?  He examined the wound in his leg.  Pink, still tender, yet free of fever, the skin around the wound showed remarkable improvement.  In fact, pain didn’t exist.  Hadn’t he been at death’s door when the woman came upon him in the mist?  Had Sonja been the woman in the mist?  If so, how had she managed to carry him to safety?  He marveled at the invigorated sense of well-being he experienced.  He reasoned he’d soon be able to leave the room and be of some use to her.

Massaging the muscle in his healing thigh, he reflected on his time abed.  He’d counted only one day since he’d awoke to find her at the door staring at him as he stood naked brandishing a wash basin as a weapon.  Battle ready at a moment’s notice, he’d reacted as he’d always done when confronted unaware.  A wash of color spread across his face.  Not only had she saw him in the altogether beside the bed but during his convalescence as well.  Deciding to try to forget the details, he reminded himself he should feel fortunate.  He still had both legs and could walk.  So many others couldn’t, he mused.  Rubbing at his chest, he couldn’t decide what the strange yearning which continued to nag his consciousness could be.  A vague sense of need swept over him as if Sonja meant something more to him than the sympathetic caregiver she’d been.  The yearning went so far as to plague his conscious mind.  Probably stress induced, he mused.

With a knock at the door, she stepped in with a tray of food the likes of which he hadn’t seen in some time.  Again, he found words wouldn’t come.  The smells imitating from the tray were delicious.

“I’ve brought you some chicken and dumplings.  You could stand something with real meat.”  She smiled for him as she set the tray on the nightstand.  “I’m afraid the chicken meat is meager.  Our roosters aren’t growing off like they should.  I have to keep the hens as fat as possible for the egg production.”

Her factual expression had guilt rising in his gullet for taking food away from her store, food to feed herself and her husband.

“Thank you, ma’am.”

She turned for the door when he picked up his fork.

“Would you stay?”  Ty’s question proved a surprise to him as well as her.

“I have chores I have to get to.  Daylight is limited this close to the full moon.  I must see to my garden.”  She waved a hand in the direction of the swamp.

“I’d really appreciate a visit.  Besides, you’ve been working too hard.  Won’t you rest?” he asked.  He didn’t want her to overdo.

Sonja glanced at the slim pressed oak chair against the wall while smoothing the front of her apron in a habitual move he found endearing.  If he had to speculate, he’d say Mrs. Brooks appeared proficient, and organized besides being a damn good cook. He spooned up another mouthful of the dumplings.

As she settled, Ty found the urge to know more about her overwhelmed him.  He had a captive audience, at least for a little while.  He would learn as much about Sonja Brooks as she would share.  “May I ask how long you’ve lived in Pennsylvania?”

“All my life, Lieutenant.  Almost twenty-nine years.”

“Are your families nearby?”

“Yes, my family lives on a farm the other side of Spotsylvania.  I have a sister.  Her name’s Brianda.”

“A sister.  I have a sister— well, a half-sister.” Ty cut her a lopsided grin.  “She’s a few years older than me.  Her name’s Casey.”  He smiled.  “Casey recently married.  She was a saloon waitress till she got hitched.  Casey married is still hard for me to swallow.”  He flicked a glance across the small table.  Sonja meeting Casey would be interesting.  The outspoken hell-cat meets the reserved nymph.  He shook his head at the picture.

“Brianda is a new wife herself,” Sonja said. The tone she used brought him back.  Her words sounded conversational.  Ty considered they might be making progress.

“Do you get to see her often?”

“We meet in town from time to time to visit.”  She splayed her hands across the apron in her lap.  A telling reaction to nerves, Ty mused.

“Family’s important.  We started out with the two of us, Seth, my older brother, and I.  Our pa remarried after Seth’s ma died.  They had me.”  He glanced up.  “Seth swears things picked up with my arrival.”  He shot her a knowing wink.

Sonja lowered her eyes and grinned.  The notion struck Ty squarely in the chest.  The nymph surprised him at every turn.  “I see you have fresh herbs in the dumplings.”  He spooned up another mouthful.  “Do you grow your own vegetables as well?”

“Yes, I love growing things.  My mother is an avid gardener.  She taught me.”  Her pleasure with the statement showed in the beauty of a relaxed smile.  Ty’s heart sang for a second.  So lovely, poised, gentle no to mention kind, he mused.  “Thank you for the book, Alice in Wonderland.  I’d read about the release of the latest by Louis Carroll before I left home.”  He glanced up from his next spoonful of dumplings.  “I’m enjoying the story.”  Satisfaction at both the meal as well as her company had him smiling for her again.

“Where’s your home, Lieutenant Loflin?”

Very direct, Ty mused.  He liked that.  Most women danced polity around a subject picking at the topic until they wormed the information out of her counterpart, leaving the person drained by the encounter.

“Texas.  Tyler, Texas west of the Sabine River.”  Her warm whiskey colored irises followed his every move.  “Do you know where I speak of?” he asked.

Nodding, Sonja gave him a brief smile.  “I understand Texas is a big place, but I know about where you mean.  Have you lived there all of your life?” she asked in return.

He gave her one of his careless shrugs as his mouth split into a boyish grin.  “All my life except when I traveled to Savannah for schooling.”

“Savannah?  School,” she said and reminded him of a magpie.

“Yes.  My pa made sure my brother and I had an education.  He sent Seth to West Point while I attended St. Matthews Military Academy.”  Giving her a wink, he couldn’t help but add, “Since my mother was Choctaw, I wasn’t eligible for West Point, but I got an excellent education at St Matt’s.”